keywords: Israel

Right wing commentators say the recognition of West Jerusalem as capital is a triumph over bullying Muslim countries within the region. This line highlights how extraordinarily unprepared the Australian right wing is for the rapid realignment which is pushing Australia into the region and away from the traditional Western powers.

Eighty years ago today, 77-year-old Yorta Yorta elder walked ten kilometres to deliver a letter to the German consulate protesting the attacks on Jewish people during Kristallnacht nearly a month earlier. Despire the dire circumstances faced by Aboriginal people at the time, Cooper's conscience couldn't ignore the suffering of others.

It is difficult for us to consider the experiences of others; our worlds a bubble reflecting our movements, our desires. One Saturday, I entered the world of another. Here, I invite you to do the same.

Analysts have commented often and at length on the divisive nature of politics in today's USA, citing Trump's inflammatory language and anti-immigration policies. One commentator went so far to say Trump did not 'pull the trigger on Jews in Pittsburgh, but he certainly prepped the shooter'.

While nuclear weapon stockpiles have reduced massively since the 1980s, the major arms controls treaties have been gradually eroded. At the same time, and even more dangerously, the world has seen a repudiation of the diplomacy which limited the numbers of nuclear weapons and which has prevented their accidental use.

While the Australian Jewish population is about 0.4 per cent, they constitute about 12.5 per cent of the Wentworth electorate, with Christianity the largest group overall (43.8 per cent). It is highly likely the LNP is counting on the embassy stunt to result in more votes in the Wentworth by-election. But the political ramifications are much broader.

That Trump is a narcissistic braggart was never in doubt. The more intriguing question was always how a businessman would behave once he became president. His administration sees business-style standover tactics as a thoroughly good option. The system-wide shifts that are resulting may have a lasting impact.

What do the Liberal leadership spill and the Syrian War have in common? Both demonstrate how force of habit, like any other force built up over a long period of time, is very difficult to stop, even when the results are plainly self destructive.

How are we to honour the commitment to peace of these Japanese and Maralinga survivors of nuclear conflagrations unleashed maliciously or negligently last century? We need to renew our commitment to painstaking negotiation of international treaties and agreements designed to ensure peace and security for all, insisting on the dignity and human rights of all.

I can personally attest that Philip Wilson has been one of the good shepherds in recent years when dealing with the plague of child sexual abuse. But as a young priest in Maitland-Newcastle back in the 1970s, it turns out that he heard things that make you feel sick in the stomach and tormented in the head all these years later.

We share a love of poetry, having come to Gerard Manley Hopkins from opposite directions, her from religious ecstasy, me from the dark sonnets. In the 1980s we met, in a shelter for Aboriginal women in Collingwood. My next memory? Ursula introducing me to the granddaughter of Kelly's sweetheart, an old woman dying in a Melbourne hospital.

'If only we could sit down with Palestinians for a bowl of hummus, all the problems would be solved,' says my Israeli friend, as we wipe hummus down with warm pita. He isn't the first to say this. Indeed, a film was made about the virtues of hummus, which asked if a regional love of hummus be the recipe for peace. Personally, I'm not so sure.